The present invention relates to ship implements and particularly to lifesaving and mooring devices.
Recreational water sport and boating activities are becoming more popular in the United States. Unfortunately, with the increase in boating activity, there has also been a concomitant increase in boating accidents and tragedies, due to drowning. Many potential drowning victims do not wear lifesaving buoyant devices, and may have limited swimming or drownproofing skills. These victims must be given assistance very quickly, in order to prevent grave tragedy.
One well known way of saving a potential drowning victim is to have a rescuer enter the water and attempt to retrieve the victim. In some circumstances, this can lead to a double tragedy to both the drowning victim and the rescuer, if the water conditions are rough or if the rescuer lacks lifesaving skills. One well known way to avoid such a double tragedy is to throw a lifeline to the victim and to retract the lifeline after the victim grabs a portion thereof.
Previous lifelines have taken many forms, a simple form thereof being the well-known doughnut-shaped life ring with a line attached thereto and more complicated forms including projectile delivery systems of lines, including harpoons, and aerial balloons. Life rings are extremely difficult to throw any distance more than a few yards and more complicated forms of lifelines are better suited to commercial and military applications, due to their complicated structure and expense.
Previous inventors have attempted to solve the difficulties of throwing a life ring by constructing floatable weighted objects in shapes that are easier to throw than life rings. One such device is described in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 29,728, wherein a lifeline is fixedly attached to a weighted floatable object that may be in the shape of a football. It is contemplated that the device be thrown to a victim, who would grasp the lifeline, the floatable member, or both and be pulled to safety. If the victim is suffering from submersion shock or is panic striken, it may be extremely difficult for him to maintain a grasp upon the device. Accordingly, it is desirable that the lifesaving device have some means to affix it to the victim, in order to ensure proper retention and retraction from the water.
Another problem facing recreational boaters is that of mooring vessels to dockside. In the past, boating activity was mostly confined to military and commercial activities; the few recreational boaters were generally competent in the arts of boat mooring and knot tying. Today, both of those arts appear to be dying and a visit to any marina will show a strange conglomeration of what might be half-heartedly described as knots being used by unskilled mariners to moor boats. There has been a long-felt need in the recreational boating industry to develop a mooring line that allows easy attachment to a dockside cleat or piling, especially if it allows direct attachment to a dock cleat or a piling merely by throwing the line from a vessel deck.
Recreational boaters are also generally budget-conscious and there is a general desire to combine functions of many pieces of equipment into fewer simple and inexpensive objects. Accordingly, a device that could simultaneously function as both a mooring line and, if necessary in an emergency, as a lifesaving line, would satisfy many long-felt boater needs.